The Importance of Being Earnest
by Red Wasabi
Summary: Time is so important when you think you're running out of it, it's something that you hold on to and try not to let slip through your fingers. But you can't stop it and day after day, time slips away. Until you have nothing but meaningless seconds.


**Title:** The Importance of Being Earnest

**Author:**Red Wasabi

**Disclaimer:** It's not mine(but I wish it was!)

**Notes:** Product of my new generator! Yay! I'll tell you what, I have never written these characters before but I think I did gooood!

**Dogfight/Fireflight/finally **

"Angrily Dogfight ignored the taunting voice, he knew he was lonely, and that he had been in this pit-slagged hole for far to long without a drop of energon, but damn it if he was going to go crazy on top of all that..."

**Remember folks the challenge is for all people in this comm! This means you!!!**

**Rated:** PG

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Dogfight lay motionless on the hard metal floor of the cell block which was currently serving as his prison. He checked his internal clock, the only superfluous program he had left functioning. All he had left now were his core processors, and his internal clock. He knew that he should have probably let it go by now, but he couldn't—wouldn't let it go; it was the only thing keeping him sane in here.

A quiet voice whispered in the back of his head, '_You know Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker...any of them would have let that silly old thing go months ago...of course they are great warriors aren't they?_'

Angrily Dogfight ignored the taunting voice, he knew he was lonely, and that he had been in this pit-slagged hole for far to long without a drop of energon, but damn it if he was going to go crazy on top of all that...it had been 3 months._'Oh Primus, what's going to happen to me?' _

If he had known that day, what was going to happen, he would have stolen Sunny's imported wax, and made him self look real fine; or he would have changed his flight route, no matter how much trouble and suspicion Red Alert would raise over him doing it. He would have...told Fireflight...told him everything. Slag, he would have gone straight to this hidden base and blown the whole thing up. The people be fraggin' slagged.

All this time, he had been looking out for Deceptions when the 'real' enemy had been lurking about in plain sight. People, treacherous, foul people; they should have been expecting something when they had begun sniffing around their base. Prodding their CMO, Ratchet into giving up details on their intimate anatomy. And Dogfight knew that everyone on base knew the day that they had attempted to bargain for one of the bodies of their comrades. Ratchet's enraged bellows had been audible through out the base _that_ day.

They were supposed to be their protectors! Their great defenders from the evil Decepticons, how could they—He could know that they would suddenly betray them like this? All he had thought he was doing was helping the military convoy out.

He had been making his usual outer evening perimeter rounds, when he picked up a faint stress signal about 20 miles from his course. When he had answered it he found a small military convoy with a tipped truck, and man seemly all in a scramble. It had all been a lie. He should have known it from way their eyes seemed to follow him as he moved around the wreckage sight. As he moved to straighten their truck up he could feel the scores of eyes weigh in and press on him; but he had chalked it up to awe at his show of strength. How utterly and devastatingly wrong he had been.

The next thing he knew, it felt as if a thousand electric needles were inside him; he could feel his fluids rush and the fans double their speed in an attempt to cool the fiery sensation that roared through his frame. By then an icy feeling began to take hold, one so maddeningly freezing that if he could have moved he would killed everything in his sight. Then he woke up here, in this little cell, in only Primus knew where.

They had done terrible things to him. He had been opened, taken apart, and put back together more times then he wanted to count; except that he could count them all, because they never off lined him for any of their cruel experiments. They hadn't bothered to feed him all this time, Dogfight wasn't sure if they just thought of him as one of their computers, or if they just didn't care. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably a little bit of both.

The ground and walls around Dogfight began to shake. '_Great,'_ he thought,'T_hey probably ran out of money and just decided to dynamite the whole place in—me included._' Back in his first month he might have regraded the shaking earth with some hope, but he had been here three months now; if anyone had been going to come for him, he knew that it would have been most logical for them to have already come. Most likely this was just a minor earthquake.'_Or a major one if Primus loves me.._.'

It was funny how looming death made his audios play tricks on him. He could almost hear the sounds o yelling, and swearing ringing down the corridors; but that was just silly there were never any sounds in this place. He didn't even scream anymore when they opened him up, it just took too much energy...

The screeching sound of metal being ripped in half made Dogfight pause in his melancholy thoughts. Reluctantly a single optic flickered on, and tired vainly to focus in on the now gaping open doorway; which was a hard task to ask of a bot when their optics hadn't been fully functional or really on for almost 2 months.

Slowly his optic focused in disbelief on a face that he never thought he'd see again.

"It's a good thing you kept your internal clock on Dogfight, it's satellite updates were the only way we found you." Fireflight chuckled weakly, as he moved into the cell to inspect his tortured friend.

Dogfight's mouth plates pulled into a tight and painful smile as he rasped his first words in months, "I had to leave it on Fireflight, cause you know, this is the most momentous occasion in all the universe, it's the first time you're finally on time for anything."


End file.
